Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Julia Donaldson Books - Our Top Picks

We just love Julia Donaldson books in our house, the Gruffalo was our first then we got some of her other books on CD for in the car and then more of her books. The boys love the flow the books have, Book Worm and Bug Boy have virtually memorised some of the books and enjoy reading them to Little Boy Blue. We recently joined the Virtual Book Club over at The Educators Spin On It (http://theeducatorsspinonit.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Virtual%20Book%20Club) and this months, our first since joining in, is author Julia Donaldson! We selected our current two favourite books of Julia Donaldsons books to read and do some activities.

What The Ladybird Heard

Little Boy Blue is loving this book at the moment with all the animal sounds. There are a few activities you can do in connection with this book once you have read it. Little Boy Blue enjoyed when we took turns to make an animal noise and guess what it was. Meanwhile Book Worm and Bug Boy enjoyed making maps like the one the robbers had in the story. We also discussed how sometimes small quiet things can go un-noticed or be dismissed easily, so we made Ladybirds out of egg cartons and took turns hiding them around the house to see if the others could find it, a bit like the old game hide the thimble.

Our Ladybird

Can you spot the Ladybird in the pictures?

Monkey Puzzle or Where's My Mum?

When ever we read this story by Julia Donaldson baby & mummy monkey always have to come out of the soft toy box to act out the story, I love the fact that when we read this story mummy (me) gets lots and lots of hugs. We decided we needed a butterfly and some caterpillars to join in with the story telling so we got to work.

I don't know if it's just toddlers or boys or maybe all kids but when ever I put out supplies for crafts they seem to need to glue EVERYTHING on to it. So I have found putting a smaller selection of things into egg cartons helps my supplies to not run out just as fast!

Little Boy Blue and mummy made the butterflies while Book Worm and Bug Boy got busy making the caterpillars.

Another activity was to match up babies and mummies for this I had cut pictures out of magazines, catalogues and printed some off the internet then glued them to cards to play a matching game.

For Book Worm and Bug Boy we discussed animals who's babies didn't look like them and it has kick started our spring theme with a planned trip to a pond to get frogs spawn and we also have a butterfly kit this year. With these activities we hope to watch and document the changes that happen during the life cycle and look at lots of new vocabulary like metamorphosis, chrysalis, pupa, plus so much more and as always we look forward to posting about it!

Printable Activities

There are lots of printable activites for Julia Donaldsons books, here are a couple of links to get you started: